Saving the World from Spreadsheets [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyWKxFxyyrQ <comment><USER2> Here's the corresponding papers:

CheckCell - [https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/CheckCell- preprint-O...](https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/CheckCell-preprint- OOPSLA2014.pdf)

ExceLint - [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.11100.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.11100.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Excelint [https://github.com/plasma-umass/ExceLint- addin](https://github.com/plasma-umass/ExceLint-addin) CheckCel [https://github.com/plasma-umass/DataDebug](https://github.com/plasma- umass/DataDebug)

<comment><USER4> What's the difference between [https://github.com/plasma-umass/ExceLint- addin](https://github.com/plasma-umass/ExceLint-addin) and [https://github.com/ExceLint/ExceLint](https://github.com/ExceLint/ExceLint) ?

<comment><USER5> (ExceLint co-author and the speaker on this video here) The first one is the latest version which works in all modern Excel versions (Windows, Mac, Online). It's a rewrite in TypeScript I did while on sabbatical this year at Microsoft Research (also it has faster and improved algorithms and more features to further improve its precision and usability). It is actively under development. Installation instructions are in the README. We are hoping to have it posted on the Microsoft store at some point. If you would like to see something like this in Excel, say so!

<comment><USER4> Cool! Does it include all the capabilities of [https://github.com/plasma- umass/DataDebug](https://github.com/plasma-umass/DataDebug) or should/could both be installed?

<comment><USER5> Right now, ExceLint and CheckCell are not integrated. But this is something we would like to do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a habit of taking notes on these types of talks when I stumble upon them, so for anyone interested, here's a quick write up of the video. Some of it is paraphrased,.

* "[Microsoft estimates that 750M users of Excel. (%7 of the world population).]"

* Spreadsheet errors basically ruined the economy of Greece.

* "State of the art" is manually double checking your formulas. This is what the experts suggest…

* There's apparently an article out there from Forbes titled "Sorry, Your Spreadsheet Has Errors (Almost 90% Do)".

* Thomas Herndon is the guy that did manual spreadsheet verification to prove that there were errors.

* Talks about CheckCell, ExceLint.

* Input errors are a huge problem: "Roughly 1% of characters people mistype."

* "[1 out of 20 cells manually typed probably has an error.]" (Woah.)

* "[Users often add a digit or remove a digit, changing the order of magnitude]"

* 1) Manual data entry is hard to do correctly, 2) Writing formulas/code/Excel that uses that data is also hard to do correctly.

* One take away: Like code, if you're not testing it manually, and no one is testing it for you manually, and you're not writing tests, and the results aren't "gut-checked" or the results aren't used, why would it be correct? If a tree falls…

* "[A lot of public posted Excel sheets are filled with errors, or fudging.]" Look at the grades one that he shows around 19:36 to see what I mean.

* "The Bootstrap" \- stats analysis using simulations. "[Resample samples]... random sample with replacement, repeatedly, to get distribution of output of calculation." Requires a homogenous range. Allows you to find "outliers" that drastically change the output. "What is the likelihood of observing one of the simulations under the null hypothesis, and if it's below [X] then we say it's unusual." Dude in audience at 30:29 describes it well.

* Formulas are easier to audit because they're usually named w/ column, etc. Data is hard.

* Goes through a long process of describing how they gather data, etc. Good stuff, but the short and the long of it is CheckCell is good.

* Loops back around to the global finance sheet that had a lot of errors: CheckCell worked on it.

* ExceLint - static analysis, ranks errors and their fixes. Can find off-by-one-like errors. Formulas using off-by-one ranges, etc.Excel has its own error finder, but it gives a lot of false positives and false negatives."Most errors are reference errors" \- wrong row, wrong column, too short a range, too long a range, etc. "Looks for disruptions in rectangular regions." Not just outliers. Looking for irregularity, where regularity is basically low entropy. "[Capture the relationship of cells/ranges and their relationship to one another.]" Looking for relationships that minimize entropy ("[Because users aren't insane and they're putting things in a rectangular grid.]" Looks for every rectangle (i.e. range) that when merged with a neighbor, would remain rectangular. That is considered a potential fix. Then you can simulate the fix as if you already did it, and check the entropy on that.

* A lot of the errors, and their origins have to do with basic Excel features. Some of these features were outlined as best practices in Joel's "You suck at Excel" talk, which is kinda funny. Great power, Uncle Ben, etc.

* Dropped this one: "SUM is [something like 45% of formulas]".

(edit: spacing out list)

<comment><USER7> Thank you for posting this. I know that your taking a few moments to offer this bit of help to the community is appreciated by many more people than will ever reply to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this stuff is great. I'm a big fan of the real world and meeting people where they are. If your plan for saving the world from spreadsheets is to convince people to use Pandas instead (and there are certainly people on HN who think that way), you're not really serious about fixing things. Developing these kinds of checking tools, which could realistically be rolled out to many Excel users is a great step forward.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know of anything similar for Jupyter notebooks or sql either. I guess testing with simulated data designed to yield expected results would be the way I test my stuff.

<comment><USER9> > I don't know of anything similar for Jupyter notebooks or sql either

Exactly. It feels like we're falling into the exact same problem with Jupyter notebooks as with spreadsheets: they become increasingly used by professionals who code (but who aren't software devs) to create bug-ridden, unmaintainable, large-scale software because they become familiar with the tool they have at hand.

<comment><USER10> Yes, definitely. I'm guilty as charged to some extent. I'm a heavy user of Jupyter, and introduced Python to my workplace, where it is now used by a handful of scientists in R&D.

I'm hesitant to blame the tool. Instead, I think it's a matter of our exuberance and interest in producing new results that causes us to get ahead of our software engineering skills and build things that get out of hand. Also, the professional developers are simply not available to help us improve things. We're on our own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> and then people just love AirTable... especially the dev community I feel

<comment><USER12> I tried using AirTable twice. It has a steep learning curve. The UI comes in the way often.

If they really have day-to-day users - they must be from the top down approach (somebody up the chain selected it) or forcefully committed ones or a have a perfect use-case.

It is certainly not for regular/most excel users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm an R advocate. I call R the "Excel Buster". I think reproducible research is very important and tools should follow. Excel has its place in fast mathematics prototyping but for reproducible research it is quite lacking.

<comment><USER14> Vast majority of Excel users would implode learning R.

<comment><USER15> Can confirm. Source: am an excel user.</comment></comment></comment>


Tutorial: Building a collaborative text editor over IPFS with Yjs in 10 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kdx8rJd8rQ <comment><USER2> Oops, the URL in the video is outdated, the repo now lives at [https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/shared-editing- demo](https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/shared-editing-demo)

This is also the tech that PeerPad is built on: [https://peerpad.net](https://peerpad.net) && [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15624158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15624158)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an aside: Someone could make this a neovim, emacs/spacemacs, or sublime plugin in a heartbeat. It's easy to encrypt the traffic (although key-sharing is harder).

Collaborative editing is "solved" enough now that it's essentially a library to include, not an open engineering task.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is my hope that one day, we'll use IPFS and other similar tools to enable our apps to work effectively in mixed-connectivity environments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Imagine a future version of IPFS that can recognize partitions and form sub- networks within an isolated network. Then, there's no difference between offline, isolated network, and public mode except for connectivity, and the way to import data is to have your inner nodes pin it!

<comment><USER3> I really like this idea. Would improve the user-visible quality of wireless mesh networks where latency can be high.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the challenge to it is that DHT structures right now are not themselves commutative. We need a CRDT foundation for DHTs, themselves!

And one that has an asymptotic algorithmic complexity bounded near O(N^2) or less to handle the massive workloads these things can see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where's the code for implementing support for textarea, ace, codemirror etc ?

</comment><comment><USER5> Why did the browsers drop connection to each other when he turned off wifi? Shouldn't they still be able to see each other? Do they need to talk to a 3rd party?

</comment><comment><USER6> If it is decentralized, then why do I need node-js? Why do I need a webserver?

<comment><USER7> Because the datastructure being manipulated is the "decentralized" feature here.

And to manipulate a datastructure you need software.

I am intrigued by your comment and your expectation about"decentralized", though.

And now I am curious: What were you expecting ?

<comment><USER6> I was expecting a standalone html file that could be run by clicking on it, or, due to that "same origin" b_llsh*t [1], at least served using any generic http server, not one which has to be specially configured and installed.

[1] I know the security reasons behind this, I just find the hassle to be a counter-logical irksome, and insecure in most cases, hack.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect you didn't read my reply, because if you did you'd recognize that [1] is simply not true.

The only considerations here are simplifying the programming model. AFAICT, nothing in this demo needs a dedicated node server, it just simplifies the explanation.

Odds are though that if you're going to need your own personal centralization of some sort if there is any concept of user privilege in your system.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Data is your biggest digital hurdle. DataOps will help you clear it - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/article/3209188/data-management/data-is-your-biggest-digital-hurdle-dataops-will-help-you-clear-it.html#tk.twt_cso <comment><AUTHOR> What are the biggest challenges people here have faced in terms of handling data?</comment>


Twitter Aims to Show Advertising to Much Wider Audience - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/twitter-aims-to-show-advertising-to-much-wider-audience/?ref=technology&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Looks like ad-blockers will start blocking embedded tweets soon.

<comment><USER3> Most ad-blockers are also tracking blockers. So, they already do.</comment></comment>


New York Times 'Exploring' Ad-Free Digital Subscription - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-exploring-ad-free-digital-subscription/304322/ <comment><AUTHOR> The interesting part is the promise to block access by users who use adblockers:

 _" No one who refuses to contribute to the creation of high quality journalism has the right to consume it," Mr. Thompson said. While the Times is "not there yet," he said that if the company has no choice but to prevent non- subscribers who refuse to whitelist the Times from reading the website, "we'll do it."_

<comment><USER2> Good luck keeping up with the adblock-blocker blockers.</comment></comment>


Robinhood Monetizes with Robinhood Gold Subscription - <AUTHOR> http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2016/9/28/robinhood-gold <comment><USER2> _Additional Buying Power_

I really worry about encouraging amateurs to trade with money they don't have...

</comment><comment><USER3> amaze</comment>


The U.S. Now Leads the World in Confirmed Coronavirus Cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/usa-coronavirus-cases.html <comment><USER2> This is likely a result of better testing capacity compared to other countries.

Im tempted to believe that China has lied about their cases. Theres a city in China with 1054 recovered but only 4 deaths. Seems odds

<comment><USER3> What? The US is drastically behind most other countries. I fully agree with you that I don't trust the Chinese Gov specifically (their track record is not stellar).

But the reality is the US delayed the various lock downs longer than it should have, actively prevented testing, and even today is not able to do regular and free drive through testing of everyone (which other countries are doing). If anything I expect that the US gov reports are _understating_ the counts.

<comment><USER4> > If anything I expect that the US gov reports are understating the counts.

Oh definitely, just not as much as before. Testing went from impossible to "if you're lucky".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> *not per capita or per geographic area. Europe is still leading [https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019...](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases)

US (327mil) has 5.4x the population of Italy (60mil).

Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and UK combined have about the same population as the US. Across those countries there's 193k COVID-19 cases.

</comment><comment><USER6> I honestly have no idea what is going on. This is like one bad dream I just can't wake up from.

Not sure how the tens of millions of people losing jobs and businesses going to be affected in coming months.</comment>


UCLA's 1948 Mechanical Computer [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/70589461 <comment><USER2> If you want more information on how you can do computation with mechanical systems, try this video:

U.S. NAVY BASIC MECHANISMS OF FIRE CONTROL COMPUTERS MECHANICAL COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONAL FILM 27794 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug)

<comment><USER3> All parts, without annoying timestamp at the bottom:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The narration is too much.

That UCLA differential analyzer from 1947 was the peak of that technology. Earlier ones in the US go back to 1928. Wikipedia says UCLA had three of those. Probably for the Southern California aircraft industry.

That was near the end of the line for the pure mechanical analog computers. Even the gun and missile guidance systems had electrical inputs and outputs. 1947 was late to be building that, but it was a mature technology and worked, although, as shown, a huge pain to reprogram. Mechanical fire control systems had one built-in problem to solve, so they didn't have to be set up as a parts kit like this.

<comment><USER5> +1 for the narrator using the traditional "Los-an-guh-lus" pronunciation instead of today's "Los-an-ju-less," popularized by The Brady Bunch and other 70's television programs.

I prefer "Los-an-ju-leez," as that was a common style among radio announcers. But all three are officially correct, according to an LA Times article I read years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool.

Also, if you're into this sort of thing here's the first in a seven video series on a very different mechanical computer - Albert Michelson's Harmonic Analyzer which does Fourier Analysis: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsM30MAHLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsM30MAHLg)

</comment><comment><USER7> I love the tone of amazement and excitement in the video. The images were amazing, but the tone really stuck with me.

I wonder what could be done to bring back that type of mass amazement and excitement towards technology?

When I think of the future I'm blown away by the possibilities of CRISPER, 3d printing, energy storage, block chains, driver-less cars, UBI, space exploration and more. We are advancing so quickly on so many fronts, and yet most people are indifferent or down right hostile toward it.

<comment><USER8> Things started to go wrong and limitations started to appear. The 1970s saw the US hit three big limitations: the failure of Vietnam, the oil crisis, and the collapse of Iran. On the technology front, that's when the environmental and social downsides of technology started to become really prominent. Three Mile Island, CFCs, leaded petrol, and so on.

That's why all the 50s and 60s stuff is so breathlessly unconditionally optimistic, and subsequent material has switched to skepticism.

People have become used to "new technology announcement === a few years later we're going to hear about the terrible downside, while the originators lied about all the safety risks". Driverless cars are absolutely in the middle of that at the moment. Vaping is currently experiencing a safety backlash.

<comment><USER9> The big transition was that productivity growth in the US became very slow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Loved the V2 rocket launch at the end. Back in '48 we didn't have any rockets, but we did have Wernher Von Braun.

<comment><USER11> Which gives me an excuse to post a link of Tom Lehrer singing about Wernher von Braun: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro) with the famous lines,

"'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun."

<comment><USER12> Von Braun shot for the moon, but hit London instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This analog computer reminds me of a great book: [https://www.amazon.ca/Mind- Play-Shannon-Invented-Information...](https://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Play-Shannon- Invented-Information/dp/147676669X)

that talks about a similar computer at MIT. I find all the pre transistor computation really interesting. Shannon was doing some really early work on what was, at the time, thought of as AI. Putting a mouse through a maze with movable walls. All with just circuits, no CPU. The circuits were not fixed, they had some branching based on phone switch tech (IIRC).

</comment><comment><USER14> Seeing it draw out a curve was pretty astonishing. What a cool slice of history!

</comment><comment><USER15> The gender balance displayed in the video is admirable, but it is always interesting to see how "white" films were from this era.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know the citation information? There were no credits at the end.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was really hoping we'd get to hear the computer operate at some point.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is that an A4 at the end? :)

<comment><USER10> Yes: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We'll be doing the same about today's computers in 70 years time.

<comment><USER20> yep

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was really hoping we'd get to hear the computer operate

</comment><comment><USER21> will wear and tear of the mechanical parts affect accuracy?

<comment><USER22> Sure, just like a sloppy slide-rule or mechanical calipers or micrometer will give you iffy readings. Whether the accuracy change is a material one depends on what you are doing. Daisy chaining results would get you into meaningless territory quite fast I would imagine.

<comment><USER23> Oddly enough, I have a circular slide rule where the printed scale is not quite concentric with the sliding discs, so the thing has a built-in periodic error.

<comment><USER22> Username checks out ;) That's neat, I've never had one of those but used a linear one for years for quick order-of-magnitude answers. I got to use it just as modern pocket calculators took off, the first ones were only four function jobs and they were priced insanely high so slide rules were more economic for the kind of problems I ran into in highschool. My maths book even had a whole chapter on using them. Then; after a few years I got a Ti-57 and that was that for the sliderule, that thing was programmable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mac OSX Hacker News Menu Tab App - <AUTHOR> http://www.guidefreitas.com/hacker-news-menu-tab-app <comment><USER2> Just in case you have not completely killed your productivity already.

But seriously, it looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks neat :-)

The comment view looks like the one in hnmobile(<http://cheeaun.github.com/hnmobile/landing/>). Did you get inspired by it?

<comment><USER4> Try load hnmobile on a non-iOS device/browser :)

<comment><USER3> So it IS hnmobile. Great job @cheeaun!

<comment><USER4> thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it gets any easier to browse HN, I may stop coding completely in favor of reading about it!

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice! As others said, as if I need an easier way to be distracted by HN. ;) I love that you made reading comments so easy -- that's usually what interests me more than the actual articles.

One suggestion: When you're reading the comments, it would be nice to have a way of opening the full article. I usually read the HN comments on an article before clicking over to the article itself and unfortunately your app has no way of opening the article from the comments view.

</comment><comment><USER7> Previous post of project: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4277901>

</comment><comment><USER8> Been looking for some simple Mac App examples, this looks great. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER9> Well done.

I'm probably going to chide myself for downloading this in a few hours. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Can you collapse parent comments?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome! Thanks Guilherme

</comment><comment><USER12> This is really great. Kudos, sir.

</comment><comment><USER13> How to install?

<comment><AUTHOR> Download the zip, unzip, drag and drop to Applications, double click :)

<comment><USER13> I must be an idiot but unzipping the zip just shows project / package contents. <http://i.imgur.com/5uUzI.png> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You downloaded the project source code, you should download the link below that on the page <http://imgur.com/y4NjL></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pandora for Video - <AUTHOR> http://shelbydev.tumblr.com/post/32738819506/shelby-genius-ios-app

<comment><USER2> fyi, i'm the guy who wrote the item-based filtering implementation and did some of the other backend work. if you have any questions about what we did, post them here and i'll try to answer.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your preferred first day of the week (Sunday or Monday)? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> ISO-8601: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_day_of_the_week#Days_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_day_of_the_week#Days_numbered_from_Monday)

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked starting dev ops weekly on-call at 6pm Mondays. This way we can work with the SDEs during the workday on any issues from the weekend.</comment>


Ask HN: Maximum bang in 3 months? - <AUTHOR>

Coding in the evenings wasn't working out so I have quit the day job and can float by at least the rest of the year. I've been a half decent developer, I can get anything working if I stick my mind to it, but I haven't been finding much satisfaction in that lately.
The idea is to make it on my own, plan B is to find some high energy flexible job -- typing code 9 to 5 was just killing me.
The question: what can I learn or do in 3-4 months for maximum success further on? Code related or not. Take success to mean what it does for you -- happiness, career, status, money.
I have the time and the energy, but I get the feeling that many things I could be doing haven't even crossed my mind. What would you do with 3 months just like that?
Thanks! I vastly appreciate the input. <comment><USER2> 1) make some courses on engineering for: a) make your own little sweet bicycle business at home b) do something with old cars/motorcycles

2) learn how to create quality furniture (so you can save money or earn if you sell things)

3) learn an instrument

all of this is possible within three months, but need more training afterwards to achieve perfection.

edit: to clarify and link to sucess: all of this wont bring you much more experience as developer but as a workout it is really really good and you can have your mind free but creative and maybe be more productive as coder which means more success.

<comment><USER3> I like the old cars/motorcycles idea. There might even be money to be made once OP achieves a certain skill level.</comment></comment>


ack, a grep like tool that used perl regex - <AUTHOR> http://petdance.com/ack/

<comment><USER2> ack is excellent. I also use it on Windows.</comment>


Ask HN: Can we consider the web safe now? - <AUTHOR>

I am not a security expert but the heartbleed bug, that leaves almost no traces, has affected a big part of the internet (some say over 50%, others over 70%), and I think that it is pretty much impossible for the most of it to be quickly updated.
So will we live with the consequences of this bug for a few years?
And how can we be sure that bugs like that aren't included in other commonly used libraries?
Please let me know I am mistaken. <comment><USER2> No.

It took 2 years for the good guys to locate a bug in a _popular open-source_ program. Who knows how many other bugs are lurking out there, especially in closed-source software - last I checked, IIS still commands a respectable market share.</comment>


Ask HN: An Advanced C Tutorial - <AUTHOR> Can any one point me to an Advanced C tutorial?
I already know C++ quite in-depth but unfortunately  never got to learn C. I was directly taught C++ in my high school, and then I went on to Matlab, Python, Java and finally advanced C++ (STL, why not to add default arguments in an overloaded virtual function, how virtual pointer table works and  stuff).
Thus now I wish to learn C really in depth!, this is partly by ongoing discussion about C++ which I can clearly identify with. <comment><USER2> Advanced C, C Traps and Pitfalls, and The Standard C Library.

Those are the classics.

C Interfaces and Implementations is over-recommended by people who haven't read it. It's a literate book that consists of heavily commented code. The comments distract from the prose and you're better off getting the library sources and jumping through it with ctags.

They faithfully address all of C's quirks. It's such a little language that most quirks lurk in the syntax and machine-specific parts, like storage classes, pointers, and its crappy little type system. But to master C fully you will need to learn some assembly and play with systems software. Try to replace libc with your own standard library and see how far you go.

Write something you care about in C. Small binary analysis utilities are a fun way; write an ELF parser or something. It excels in bit-manipulation. However, doing GUIs in C or processing strings would be an exercise in boredom.

</comment><comment><USER3> The C Programming Language (aka K&R)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language_(boo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language_\(book\))

<comment><USER4> This. This remains the most concise and to-the-point programming book I have -ever- read. It bothers me some that people (myself included) keep writing 900 page programming books when this can do nearly the same in 200.

Once you're done with that, pick up one of the W. Richard Stevens (RIP) books — Advanced Programming in the Unix environment, or Unix Network Programming (Vol i/ii) if you're into networks. They'll teach you the basics of so much operating system stuff (it'll be Unix, but the core concepts will apply to any modern OS) you'll be growing a long unkempt beard and wearing sandals/suspenders in no time.

<comment><USER5> You write 900 page programming books?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You didn't tell us how well you learned C++. Do you understand pointers and how to manually build simple binary search trees and linked lists?

You see, C is a really small language and "learning it in depth" includes learning arcane rules, such as what constitutes undefined behavior, what names are reserved, etc.

I would recommend reading the "C Interfaces and Implementations" book by David Hanson. Another book that I'd recommend is "Expert C Programming (dark C secrets)" by van der Linden.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand how pointers, Iterators etc work, I know several algorithms from binary search to SVD. I also have very good knowledge of IA 32.

"learning it in depth" includes learning arcane rules, such as what constitutes undefined behavior, what names are reserved, etc.

That's what I exactly want to learn. Esp how to optimize for memory management and pthreads and stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> C is a simple language with some pearls and a lot of corner cases. For the corner cases "C. Puzzle Book" by Alan R. Feuer it's a funny read with a lot of oh-oh moments.

For the pearls... well I can give you a couple: \- sizeof() macro is a good friend \- ISO C99 <stdint.h> introduces Exact-width integer types <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stdint.h>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the tips!

One interesting use of sizeof i remember in my C++ project was to override new and delete operators where a void pointer is passed and sizeof is used to keep track of how much memory is allocated/deallocated.

<comment><USER7> One interesting usage of sizeof() is to calculate the dimension of an array at compile time:

      #define dim(x)   (sizeof(x) / sizeof(x[0]))

and this is handy for static arrays with dimension defined by its data, likes:

      static const struct {
        someEnum_t enCommand;
        void       (*Fxn)(stCommands_t *a_psCommand);
      } m_stCmdMap[] = {
        {CMD_SD_FREESPACE,         _sdFreeSpace},
        {CMD_SD_DISK_INFO,         _sdDiskInfo},
        {CMD_SD_FORMAT,            _sdFormat},
      }

When you add a new array elements, it just keep the stuffs going calculating it at any recompilation:

      for (i=0; i<dim(m_stCmdMap); i++) {
        if (m_stCmdMap[i].enCommand == stCmdLocal.enCommand) {
          m_stCmdMap[i].Fxn(&stCmdCopy);
          break;
        }
      }

Another useful macro to work with structs is offsetof(), its incredibly usefull when you have to port some code to different compilers/target with different alignments and paddings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> After K&R, the most helpful book for me was Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Peter van der Linden. He even gives a little preview of C++.

</comment><comment><USER9> My advice, First of all do not look for an _advanced_ C tutorial. Second, Go and grab a copy of Kernighan & Ritchie's C programming language book (commonly known as the KnR book). Third, _Do_ this book ... (yeah, don't just read it, do it).

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61c/su10/>

<http://neverball.org/download.php>

<http://bellard.org/>

</comment><comment><USER11> I learned a lot from IOCCC winning entries. (<http://www0.us.ioccc.org/years.html>)

</comment><comment><USER12> If you know C++ in depth, you aleady know C at a professionally usable level, or at least get there with a couple of projects. C is a subset of C++ anyway. True, there are minor differences hera and there, but shouldn't really be deadly.

I guess the more difficult part will be to transition from object oriented to procedural paradigm.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know few things such as structs etc. and how you can derive a class from a struct and stuff. but i have never used calloc or malloc (shudder!) and have only relied on new/delete [] for all memory management.

Thus its hard for me to understand what constitutes as C and what dosen't. I mean i dont know if C supports typedef's

<comment><USER12> Well you'll learn if typedef is supported pretty quickly, when you hit enter after your compile command.

As for the malloc's and various memory allocators, learn malloc and free, the rest are convenience methods, which you can live without.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> another book online link [http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/c_book/c_book/index.htm...](http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/c_book/c_book/index.html)</comment>


Swedish authorities in crisis talks over telecom 'sabotage' - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.se/20160520/sweden-investigates-after-series-of-tech-glitches <comment><AUTHOR> Wednesday May 25 the Swedish parliament is scheduled to vote for the very controversial NATO "host country" agreement. In short this means NATO forces will be able to operate out of Sweden in case of a nearby (meaning the baltics) military crisis.

Starting about ten days ago, Sweden has experienced a highly abnormal level of outages in various services:

May 4: A cable was cut for a communications mast that was essential for the rescue services in; in southern Sweden.

May 15: a 330 meter tall transmitter tower outside of Gothenburg was sabotaged and fell down. This caused an outage in TV, Radio and emergency services in the area. Police later found very obvious evidence of sabotage.

May 18: Nation-wide: the 911 service had "operational disturbances" which blocked emergency calls for 20 minutes.

May 19: The radio/tv house in Gothenburg (second largest swedish city) was completely our for a couple of hours after "network issues"

May 19: The Swedish airspace was completely shut down during ~4 hours due to ATC system disturbances.

May 19: Bredbandsbolaget/Telenor, one of the top two largest consumer ISPs were completely down for 4-8 hours.

<comment><USER2> totally unrelated events, troll!

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol. Says an account's first message, created only to post this. Putinbots - you need to get better at your jobs. This is unprofessional.</comment></comment></comment>


A Breakthrough in High-Pressure Physics - <AUTHOR> http://www.harvardmagazine.com/2017/01/metallic-hydrogen <comment><USER2> Apparently, this was pre-published in October. Previous discussion here[0], ArXiv link here[1]. The news today is the peer-reviewed version in _Science_ of the same paper, as I understand it.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12875868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12875868) [1]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.01634](https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.01634)

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, this is new! This particular breakthrough has a different molecular structure than what was found back in October, and the way it's been configured is different.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Some of the critiques I've been reading about in other news articles are saying that this is just the polished version of the same results. Interesting to hear that either the competing researchers or the news outlets reporting this are wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's interesting! can you share any of those links? curious.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-doubt-bold-report- of-m...](http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-doubt-bold-report-of-metallic- hydrogen-1.21379)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The title for this is horrible, the thing that really needs to be emphasized is the metallic hydrogen. The other story on HN about this...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13495007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13495007)

...mentions they are going to release the pressure in a few weeks. Anyone know if they have tried to measure the conductivity yet? I assume that would be one of the first things they'd want to do.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For 80 years, scientists have been trying to figure out how to produce metallic hydrogen. The search is finally over, and this breakthrough is going to transform everything from space travel to how we turn lights on and off.

<comment><USER4> Any timeframe for production?

<comment><AUTHOR> Scientists first need to see if it's stable at room temp, and that should take a few months. After that, it'll be up to how quickly it can be reproduced.</comment></comment></comment>


You can now disable Google Buzz if you're willing to delete your Google Profile - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/EK2xo.png

<comment> X-Istence Retarded move. I have a public profile but no longer wanted Buzz. I had to re- create my profile after getting rid of Buzz.

<comment><USER2> Someone screwed up in the backend. They'll figure it out because that is bad (or a deterrent ;-) ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unless this is recent, the bottom of the gmail page there is a button to 'turn off buzz' just like you can for chat.

I don't recall it notifying me of any changes to my profile.</comment>


Show HN: Telecoms blocking access to NIH studies - <AUTHOR> It appears that at least two mobile internet providers are blocking access to NIH studies. For instance, I was unable to load this from my phone using 4G and had to connect using separate wifi. Several others have confirmed this.  For instance:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21716201/
If you're unable to view the link, it discusses the carcinogenic effects of low intensity microwave radiation from devices such as mobile phones and wireless modems.
Edit: Appears that all NIH studies are blocked, e.g.,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3746332/
So perhaps it's a DDOS prevention routing issue. <comment><AUTHOR> It appears that the National Toxicology Program site is blocked as well by specific internet providers:

[http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov](http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov)</comment>


Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/ring-ring-ring-ring/561545/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> "Spam phone calls/telemarketers" are probably on the nicer side of typical voice traffic floating around (at least in the US) these days.

The article doesn't really mention the vast number of spoofed police/(three letter government agency) calls that attempt to get people to pay up for a made-up crime. Sometimes these are even highly targeted (e.g., scary threats aimed towards international students).

It's gotten to the point where not only do I never answer the phone from a number I don't know, I regret ever having listed my number on a CV/resume that has certainly been scraped at this point.

<comment><USER3> Then there are places where you get calls from people pretending to be your just recently kidnapped daughter or other family member crying for you and then switching to someone supposedly the kidnapper trying to get you to pay a ransom right quick before they do something you might regret. They yell and demand to get you scared so you're not thinking straight. I know a few people this has happened to. One uncle got a call from his "daughter" crying for his help when she was really only a few months old. That was a little funny. As soon as he expressed surprise at how quickly his daughter learned to talk, they hung up.

Best thing to do in these scenarios is to hang up quick without saying anything, and contacting your family member directly to check if they're ok.

There are also those that talk vaguely and familiar to get you to think it's someone you should know but just can't remember, and they'll tell you they've got trouble and ask if you can help them out with some money. I've gotten one of those.

Oftentimes, how this works is that they'll call you sometime before to carefully obtain information from you and then call you again when you might have forgotten the call to use this info against you.

These things used to be more common a few years ago, but I'm still careful never to give any personal info to random callers. Back then, I once got a call like this:

        *ring*
        me: "Hello?"
        caller: "Who am I speaking to?"
        me: "No. Who are you and what do you want?"
        *caller hangs up*

Something that's really annoying recently are telemarketing calls from the competitor of my cellphone provider. Every. time. of the 3 to 7 times a day they call, they ask for my name. I mean, what? Given how common these types of scams were nationwide just a few years ago, you'd think they'd understand how unacceptable it is for a caller to ask the name of the person they're calling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TL;DR: Spam phone calls/telemarketers.

We need to make it impossible to forge caller ID. Block, OK, but not forge. That means that the CO/telephone company has to do caller ID, the calling phone can't.

If you're the police or a reporter or something, you want to take calls with the caller ID blocked. If not... probably not.

<comment><USER5> Can any VOIP experts suggest a mechanism for enforcing this with VOIP calls?

<comment><USER6> The ANI comes over with the call setup, should be used to know who the exchange will charge for the call. This can be blocked against, but since the late 90s almost no one wants to send this info because it can be blocked. And it isn't required, with it often being blank. Caller ID comes on the second ring, but this can be set to be whatever you want and it gets just passed along. I've rarely seen ANIs blocked on the telco side unless they were sending a ANI, really spamming and someone reported them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No spam calls here in germany, I still don't pick up my phone. It's the age of instant async communication and I love it. And mom, please don't just write "are you there?", just tell me what it's about...

<comment><USER8> My mom does this too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would really like to see discussion of phone alternatives.

VOIP options for landline / hardwired locations, including filtering. Other messaging for wifi / mobile.</comment>


Flickr owner SmugMug says it needs more money to 'keep the Flickr dream alive' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/19/21030795/flickr-pro-smugmug-don-macaskill-open-letter <comment><USER2> I renewed my Flickr Pro subscription for the first time in a few years after SmugMug's acquisition, but I barely ended up using the site, and let it lapse a month or so ago. It bums me out to say it, but I think photography might have moved on from Flickr. I know mine has, at least.</comment>


Airlines Are Backing Volantio (YC W09), a Startup That Could Fix Overbooking - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-27/airlines-are-backing-a-startup-that-could-fix-the-overbooking-problem <comment><USER3> I love seeing old YC companies continue to try to discover product market fit. I remember this blog post which made me think they were toast because pg told them: "But until you've got a major discovery to show, or some serious growth, I can't recommend you to investors"

[http://tomhoward.co/part-1-reality-check](http://tomhoward.co/part-1-reality- check)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941754)

</comment><comment><USER4> The title is a polite way of putting it. In reality, what they are backing is a startup which claims that the data they gather will allow airlines to gobble all consumer surplus by being able to offer compensation equal to the reservation price of the customer: I.e., the compensation that leaves the passenger indifferent between flying on this flight vs giving up their seat.

I am going to claim that the airlines backing this and the investors of the startup have not studied Ultimatum Games[1]:

        One of the most debated results in experimental
        economics comes from studies of the so-called
        "ultimatum" game. In this game, one player (the
        "proposer") goes first and offers a split of a pie
        of given size. The second player chooses whether to
        accept or reject. If the second player rejects, both
        get noting. If he accepts, they split the pie as was
        proposed. The ultimatum game has a unique subgame
        perfect equilibrium where the proposer gets
        (essentially) the whole pie. It also has many other
        Nash equilibria, where the proposer offers a more
        generous split, fearing an aggressive offer will be
        rejected.

        The experimental results are in stark contrast to
        the backward induction solution.

[1]: [https://web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%20286/Experimental.pd...](https://web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%20286/Experimental.pdf)

<comment><USER5> The game theory is indeed complex.

> offer compensation equal to the reservation price of the customer

It's a little more complex than this. It's highly feasible to offer compensation higher than than the original purchase price of the ticket while inducing passengers to move to a different flight, meaning they're effectively being "paid to fly".

In many cases, customers are actually not on their preferred flight in the first place, but merely the one that was cost-optimal at time of purchase.

Changes in market demand in the intervening 3-6 months can easily mean that many passengers on an aircraft can be compensated above their original purchase value to move to their preferred flight.

The above case is an idealised version, but the equilibria is complex and difficult to intuit without experimentation (which is primarily what we're working on).

More news as it happens :)

Sameless self-promotion (I'm cofounder/CTO): We're also hiring ([https://angel.co/volantio/jobs](https://angel.co/volantio/jobs) / [https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/270](https://www.workatastartup.com/directory/270))

<comment><USER6> This reminds me of a flight I booked about 3/4 a year ago from SF to DC - <USER2> had a suboptimal layover in Houston, which was rerouted to be a layover in Chicago after the hurricane triggered changes to my routing. Unfortunately for the airline, it then had to deal with a situation where they overbooked by 10 people.

I was offered a first class seat on a direct flight + $600 to switch, which I happily accepted. In truth, I would've been happy with just any seat on that direct flight.

<comment><USER4> > I would've been happy with just any seat on that direct flight.

And, the goal of the Volantio is to collect data on you so that the airline never over-compensates you. That is, all the benefits from the rebooking transaction accrues to the airline.

Imagine every time you went to buy a coffee, the coffee shop charged you exactly how much you value the next cup of coffee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A good start, but I think this could be taken much farther.

If we look back 20+ years, we built up very strong rituals around scheduling because we couldn't make the system work any other way. But in-person plans have become much more dynamic as we become better connected. Air travel is still very much in the old world there: we book far in advance, slotting ourselves into fixed-schedule, fixed-capacity options, even though we are often much more flexible.

For example, every August I go back for a big camping trip with extended family. I could fly from a few different airports into a few different cities over a few days. Since working remotely for a day or two isn't a problem, the return's even more flexible. Why do I have to buy a specific down-to-the- minute ticket now if I want a good price?

I'd be happy to commit now, and then let the airlines (or airlines negotiating automatically with my booking agent) work out exactly when I'm going. They could use much more data to maximize efficiency, giving us lower total prices.

<comment><USER5> This. (Disclosure: I'm cofounder/CTO of Volantio). Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's.

It may be worth mentioning that airlines are perhaps less-evil than is apparent from the outside. Most of their baffling behaviour is (IMHO) largely due to lack of capabilities rather than malevolence.

Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem in a marketplace with extreme illiquidity (eg: traditionally, seats can't be resold effectively once purchased).

The complexity is, frankly, staggering - the seminal paper on the topic is probably this: [http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel- com...](http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel- complexity/ITA-software-travel-complexity.html)

We are taking the (very small) initial steps in alleviating some of the issues by introducing increased liquidity into the market, but the ultimate goal is helping shift the industry into a more dynamic place (perhaps as described by the parent comment).

<comment><USER8> _" Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's."_

Personally, I find this common observation off base. Most airlines have pushed the legacy TPF layer into a sort of nosql data store. Both Sabre and Amadeus have been able to pull the business logic out of TPF.

Any sort of lagging technical progress seems more related to either thin margins, or the complexity you point out.

There's certainly room for innovation and improvement. I just hate the framing of the problem being tied to "old systems". It is mostly not true. Varies per airline, and res system, of course.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I possibly stated that poorly - what I meant was: The current state of duopolistic airlines technology suppliers means that there may not be sufficient motiviation to evolve the capabilities of the old systems.

Case in point: Regardless of whether Sabre/Amadeus have replaced their legacy layer with some sort of nosql, I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML.

<comment><USER8> _" I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML"_

True, but TPF is scalable enough that it doesn't matter. The API is responsive, flexible, and handles the traffic. The ugliness isn't limiting new functionality, etc.

We spend very little time talking about the cruft at the bottom. The business complexity is more important.

Things like fare classes, discount codes, availability, fare basis codes, reaccommodation, and so forth. If it were all written in rust or Go + microservices it wouldn't be any more straightforward.

Your product seems to confirm that. You aren't reducing that screen scraping any. But you're adding value.

<comment><USER5> Well said :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Volantio's solution: Gather non-identifiable data about purchasing behaviors to learn what type of consumer is more likely to accept what type of offer.

Call me a skeptic as much as you want, but the "non-identifiable data", must _somehow_ end up being identifiable, or at least the passenger will be personally tagged as "type A", "type B", Type C", etc. in order to propose him/her the "best deal".

<comment><USER10> Well would not passengers the game the system by displaying signaling to maximise the best deal for them - just like there are ways of gaming the upgrade system wear a suit if you have a PhD book with Dr instead of Mr or MS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a much simpler solution to the overbooking problem: eliminate the fraud exemption that airlines currently enjoy, allowing them to sell the same seat twice.

The downside is that, if airlines are unable to resell unused seats, more flights will fly partially empty, reducing overall efficiency of the industry. But if they offer standby "tickets" at steep discounts (instead of making _every_ ticket a probabilistic standby seat), that problem would solve itself.

<comment><USER12> Don't all airlines already sell standby tickets? I'm guessing the demand on the average flight isn't enough to cover the chance someone won't show.

<comment><USER13> I've never seen standby tickets on sale in a first order way. Usually, it's when you're on a rebooked or connecting flight, they'll offer you standby on a better (but sold out) option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd often be perfectly happy to take earlier or later flights on the same day, and potentially even change routing (OAK vs. SFO, or even something crazier like MIA vs. FLL). Wouldn't even necessarily need to offer cash; frequent flyer miles or upgrade to C or F or even lounge access while waiting would be fine.

Rare other times, I'd probably want >$5-10k to change my flight (missing a speaking slot at a conference or a customer meeting or something when booked close).

Being able to surface customer preferences like this seems valuable. I've had Alaska/Virgin call to offer compensation to change (or cancel) flights before, either due to overbooking or downgauging, and I've had international flights change and offer free rebook/cancel as a result, but nothing has really been technically efficient or easy to use yet.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised that airlines wouldn't/couldn't build this functionality themselves.

Does anyone here have insight into the 'buy vs. build' decision that any of these airlines went through in adopting this company's services?

<comment><USER16> i've always had the same question about Uber (re the convenience of using an app to hail and pay)

<comment><USER17> The value of Uber isn't the app, it's the network of drivers/riders.

<comment><USER16> the value of Uber is convenience.

flailing your arms on a street corner hoping that some vacant taxi will notice you is both silly and inefficient. at any one time there are tons of people needing taxis and tons of empty taxis burning fuel unable to find fares. if there was an app that allowed you to tap a button and have taxi arrive to pick you up, it's likely Uber would not be where it is today.

<comment><USER18> This is actually an interesting idea. What if the city of SF created an Uber/Lyft-like app, and required that all registered taxis be listed on it and have the driver app running and active on their phone while on duty? Obviously taxis could still accept manual street-side hails and line up in hotel taxi lines if/when they want to. But they otherwise could accept fares on the app, and riders could still pay seamlessly through the app, and have the option to rate drivers and submit feedback.

They wouldn't be able to charge the rock-bottom prices Uber and Lyft do in order to gain market share, of course. But with Uber (and to a much smaller extent Lyft) suffering some backlash wrt their business practices and tendency to increase traffic congestion, such an app might have a chance at pulling at least some market share back toward traditional taxis.

If I could order a taxi using an Uber/Lyft-like experience[0], and get decent wait times, I wouldn't mind spending more in order to support a local alternative, if that local alternative was actually showing signs that it wanted to innovate and adopt a customer-first attitude.

[0] Yes, I know Uber had UberTAXI for a while, but in practice the wait times were huge and most of the times I checked the option, it said there were no taxis available at all. Obviously Uber had little incentive to make the taxi part of their service attractive, and plenty of incentive to make it _un_ attractive, so I don't really blame the taxi services themselves for this deficiency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As far as I can tell overbooking is an almost exclusively US phenomenon. In Europe I don't know of anyone who has been 'bumped' off a flight because it was overbooked. Low cost airlines like Ryanair manage to fill flights without overbooking. There is a lot to dislike about Mr O'Leary's company but I don't think anyone worries that their ticket is not going to be honoured.

<comment><USER20> _Low cost airlines like Ryanair manage to fill flights without overbooking._

Presumably the reason why US airlines overbook is to maximize yield since almost always some passengers don't show up. Any reason why non-US airlines don't do the same? I suspect it has to do with ticket regulations but would like to learn more.

<comment><USER21> European budget carriers have figured out how to lower the bar to a level unknown in the US. One carry-on, zero checked luggage allowance, pay to pre- assign a seat, pay for water on-board, pay 30 Eur if you don't pre-print your own boarding pass at home, scan, tag and check your own luggage. Almost all tickets are 100% non-refundable - miss the flight, you're going to pay for another ticket. Prices are low enough that people are willing to suffer through the experience, and keep the planes completely full. It's more like a Greyhound bus in the air.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> FLUX-YOU Just FYI, if you get asked to swap, there's no guarantee you get the same plane type.

I opted to switch in exchange for $300, but the plane was an older 737, down from a 787.

<comment><USER22> Is 300 dollars not worth the downgrade? That's also a pretty small amount of money to accept to switch. Holding out would get you more, or force someone else to take it.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Considering I don't fly much, not really. 787 vs. 737 is also worlds apart in terms of comfort (both flights were first class).

The certificate they give you is valid for a year.

<comment><USER22> I won't disagree about the comfort but man they got you. Should never accept a certificate, especially that low for first class. Next time just hold out. I've had it happen twice now and both times were close to 1k in certs.

<comment> FLUX-YOU It wouldn't surprise me if Volantio or airlines automatically checked to see how often someone flies and tries to lowball them.

<comment><USER18> It depends. It seems like the goal here is to make the airlines money while still making it seem to the passenger like they've gotten a decent deal. A less frequent traveler who doesn't know that $300 is a low-ball offer might be perfectly satisfied with that, even while a more frequent traveler would laugh at such an offer.

There's no objective measure of the feeling of "getting a good deal". It's entirely subjective and depends on what the customer values, as well as how much information the customer has about similar transactions. Obviously if the customer later gains new information that suggests they could have gotten a much better deal, that's a negative, but part of figuring out that optimum deal point is figuring out the likelihood of that, as well.

<comment> FLUX-YOU Honestly it wasn't until I actually flew on a 787 that I realized the trade- off. My only frame of reference was ~1998 economy-class flight quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe I'm cynical here but any technology that allows safer overbooking will be used to squeeze more bookings on a plane again increasing the risk of upset passengers and PR disasters. Markets lead to exploring boundaries and the boundary to overbooking is the willingness of the company to suffer the consequences. That willingness is cultural and will not be changed by technology.

</comment><comment><USER24> The investment by non-US carriers intrigues me, because there is no significant overbooking problem worldwide: its a mostly US phenomenon as I understand it.

The rebooking-because-cancelled, thats a huge problem anywhere. So, I suspect the JV partners are looking to benefits for unexpected surge loads and overflow from late/dropped flights in a tight jet schedule.

<comment><USER13> I think it's a media attention thing. Flights are overbooked all over the world, and people get involuntary bumped. I just did a couple of searches for "[lufthansa, british airways, qatar, emirates] overbooked", and it's not exactly unheard of. It's a relatively rare event, though, but one that caught US media attention due to the pretty gruesome removal of Dr Dao last year (which wasn't even an overbooking incident).

There's also the factor of the uniquely dense and complex nature of the US domestic network. More flights with more connections make for more uncertainty in the system, to which overbooking is an answer.

<comment><USER24> _" Flights are overbooked all over the world"_ Yes, but overall at a far lower intensity than in the US. I don't just mean 55/45 type things: I have flown continuously internationally for the last 20 years, worldwide, about 5-10 trips per year, and the only economy I have been bumped in was the USA. The data you gave about search matches in no way addresses the huge skew to events in the USA.

Contrariwise, the UK is the only economy I have used trains in, which routinely has major commuter train cancellations. The commonality here is a lack of capital investment and oversight

 _uniquely dense and complex nature of the US domestic network. More flights with more connections make for more uncertainty in the system, to which overbooking is an answer_ Yes. this I think is true. the US has far more dense flights, and has chosen overbooking as _an answer_ but in no sense is it _the answer_ to this problem: It's the one we've got. The regulator could have directed other approaches, but the cost consequences on airlines (who routinely seem to use chapter-11 methods to walk away from historical debt) would have been pretty bad. This answer maximises profit for airlines, at the expense of flyer convenience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While this is a step in the right direction it just serves to show how far behind airline companies are in terms of tech. Swapping out passengers on the fly and handing out virtual miles in exchange is seen as "innovative technology"?

Hopefully this will pave the way for technological disruption in the airline business.

<comment><USER8> That's a broad brush. Airlines aren't all at the same point in dealing with overbooking.

It's also not a trivial issue given the slim margins and complexity. Consider connecting flights, different fare types (refundable or not, advance purchase, etc). Also, differing aircraft types, how many seats they have, and which crews are qualified to fly them. Oh, and weather.

If you think the root cause is _" airline IT is incompetent"_, you're probably off base. Google paid $700M for a crazy talented company (stuffed full of PhD genius level talent) that did a good job of solving shopping, but failed commercially at solving booking.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure I'd call it "failed commercially at solving booking". Google stopped their work on creating a booking system after the acquisition since they were never interested in getting into booking.

<comment><USER8> They had one small airline (Cape Air) using it for a long time, so I don't quite get your point. It was built, but almost nobody bought it. Google did squash it roughly 2 years after buying ITA, but it was pretty much dead anyway.

<comment><USER26> I have to admit I don't know this stuff first hand, but based on what I heard, it took quite a while for ITA to be fully "absorbed" into Google, during which time they didn't change much. I also heard that their first customer was more of a pilot or development partner. Also, from what I know about the airline industry, they change very very slowly and it'd take a long time from the time airlines are approached to the time things are actually in production, especially for something this critical.

<comment><USER8> That's fair. I'm not trying to portray ITA as a failure. Quite the opposite. Trying to say even an elite group of genius talent can't turn the ship quickly. That it's more about legacy thinking than it is about legacy tech.

Airlines and OTA companies could be 10x more innovative with the tech they have now. TPF and other old tech is NOT the barrier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's already a well-proven technique for price discovery: it's called a _market_.

But because there's no real market for airplane tickets--the airlines basically forbid secondary transactions--we're forced into a world of centralized planning, and by an entity that's fairly incompetent at that.

This entire thing would be solved if plane tickets could be bought and sold in some sort of marketplace. The airlines could even take a cut of every transaction!

It's baffling to me that the overbooking problem is solved _at the airport_ , minutes before take-off.

Imagine instead a world where you could buy and sell plane tickets.

\- On purchase, I could set a reserve price for which I'd be willing to sell my plane ticket, and have the price go up as the time of flight got near.

\- Late to the airport--perhaps I could trade tickets with someone on a later flight that wants to leave sooner?

\- I have a flexible lifestyle. Standing order for tickets to the beach|family|wherever at a low price, as long as I have 5 hour warning before flight time. Gonna miss your flight? I'll buy it.

Let the airlines take a cut of every secondary transaction and let app developers & market makers figure out the use-cases.

<comment><USER20> Interesting idea. However I suspect that in such a secondary market most liquidity/volume would only exist last minute, making it less likely to improve yield optimization (for airlines) or consumer choice (for passengers).

 _It 's baffling to me that the overbooking problem is solved at the airport, minutes before take-off._

Think about how excess seats usually come about: a passenger doesn't show up because of some unforeseen circumstance which occurs last minute. By the time that passenger decides they can't make the flight, it might be too late to generate sufficient demand for that ticket. Potential buyers of that ticket have to be packed and ready to go. And where do we find those people? At the airport.

The population of people who are super flexible in both destination and time is probably not sizable enough to generate enough volume in a secondary market.</comment></comment>


A social network for programmers - <AUTHOR> http://programming.com/

<comment><USER4> I won't be signing up purely based on that photo of a "programmer".

Marketing guy: should I start a social network for marketers, showing a guy who's adding two and three together and getting six as answer? Would you sign up for that? No? But you expect programmers to sign up when your marketing portrays them as idiots?

<comment><USER5> This was my first thought. Flicking through the rest of the site though it doesn't look bad. Surprising number of members from Iran.

I do feel the home page needs to change. Why not rotate the image and show a random community member. This would be a better representation of what a 'programmer' looks like.

<comment><USER6> It's obviously a joke, which I can take... _as long as the designer who made it was a nerd_ ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This doesn't feel as much a social network as an unstructured dumping ground of noise vaguely related to "programming", in an insultingly naive sense of the term [1].

Maybe there's some grand plan here, but I don't see it. As it stands no self- respecting "programmer" is going to use this site because it serves no purpose, nor does it solve any problems. We'll use StackOverflow because it does.

[1] see the landing page photo.

<comment><USER8> Suddenly this thread comes to mind <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747>

All you comments may be valid, but for me it just came across as quite vicious.

<comment><USER9> After all HN is a forum with lots of programmers, which may feel that this landing page image is insulting.

It's not that I'm against the concept itself, since I wanted to test the product immediately after I read the headline here, but that image instantly killed off any desire to try it.

<comment><USER10> I second DominikR: img/bg.jpg was really a turn off (and I like to think I'm smack in the middle of the apparently intended target audience)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Github is already my favorite 'social' network. No need for cheesy photographs. I realize that it's probably considered humorous among some, but to me the landing page is really cheesy and off-putting.

<comment><USER12> I wish Github had some sort of discussion system. At the moment everyone seems to be using google groups but that'sa pretty awful place to discuss code.

<comment><USER13> More than pull requests and inline code comments?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The design of this site looks like it's off to a good start, there are a few suggestions/issues I have, though.

* The links on the bottom of the front page don't go anywhere (href="#") and don't open anything for me.

* The pictures of the members sorta get out of alignment with each other in the user info page.

* considering that Stackoverflow exists and is immensely popular with programmers, what does programming.com do that's so different that would make a regular user of Stackoverflow (like me) to come over. What exactly is the 'social networking' aspect that would make me want to leave LinkedIn+Stackoverflow?

Lastly, and this is not a criticism but just a curiosity, are the makers of this website Iranian? I noticed a lot of the members in the people section were based out of Tehran.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow, I must say the comments on this post are a great example of the vitriolic nature of HN recently. I hope you guys don't get too discouraged by them.

The site looks well designed, and I think there's definitely room for a social networking site for programmers, that offers more than what Github and HN can provide to the community. Whether this site succeeds will depend entirely on what its actual features are, which is very unclear from the landing page ("Our mission" links to "#"...not exactly informative.) I would suggest putting up more information ASAP, because even a landing page just to gauge interest needs to contain enough info to capture people's interest. Also, as others have said, please change the photo.

Best of luck, I'm excited to see where this project goes!

</comment><comment><USER16> That cross-eyed nitwit on the logged out homepage is an insulting stereotype of geek culture.

<http://programming.com/static/img/bg.jpg>

This website can go fuck itself.

<comment><USER17> <strike>This website can go fuck itself</strike>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a good idea. And sprinkled in all the hate comments are a few good bits of constructive criticism.

1) Remove the stock photo asap

2) Clearly define why someone using Github or Stackoverflow would want your service.

3) Tell us about your service on your home page.

What kills it for me is a personal bias though. We have a stigma here in the states about Iran's Gov't. I'd be fearful to give my data to a company who is at the mercy of the Iranian Government.

What country is your company based out of?

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't see any constructive comments except few for this post. Why is it so? If you don't like this sort of site , you can help them improve it by giving some helpful comments . They must have worked hard to came up with this .As a fellow programmer , we should respect their work first .

<comment> brown9-2 Here is some - the homepage is unusable on an iPhone.

<comment><USER20> It's also unusable on an Android phone. There's a problem with the meta tags I think; the site doesn't allow scaling and it doesn't adjust itself to small screen sizes. You have to allow one or the other for your site to work well on a phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 'Launchrock' style landing page - <USER3>

Completely clueless stock image - <USER3>

I left in a hurry.

<comment><USER22> If you look at the user profiles, it appears that the image is a photo of the administrator (<http://programming.com/users>).

<comment><USER23> <http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/3750742>

<comment><USER22> Ah, so the admin's photo is a fake (<http://programming.com/root>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great going guys on getting a product launched.

Try to ignore the majority of comments from people offering nothing more than a self promotion of how much of a cynic they are.

Some thoughts on the site:

1\. That photo needs to change, I personally like it in the same way I love parody twitter accounts like hipster programmer. However, some will view it as condescending.

2\. While you're in private alpha and that's all good, if someone is singing in with a Gtihub profile it's more than likely they're a value to what you're working on. Don't make them jump through hoops to obtain an alpha code, just let them on.

3\. I think you should integrate with Github on an individuals profile to browse someones repos and comment on these.

4\. When I see the profile I think of CV, I'm not sure why but I keep looking for an export to PDF button. Maybe it's the recommendation feature or the layout, either way if you're not trying to become a programmers CV something needs to change here. If that is your focus then I'd say mission accomplished.

Just my thoughts and kudos on launching as opposed to sitting on HN putting down others work.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always thought of Stack Overflow as the programmer's social network.

<comment><USER26> <http://forrst.com> is another.

And also <http://geekli.st/> \- even though it's not technically programming oriented, all of the top communities on there are programming related.

<comment><USER27> I've always viewed Forrst more designer than programmer

<comment><USER26> It seems to have turned out that way but officially it's always been "developers and designers" with a slant towards front-end work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Clearly they've goofed and don't get their own market. Http://Geekli.st is by developers for developers. Even designed mostly by its co-founders. (I'm one of them: disclosure)It's the only open communication platform for programmers or developers/geeks. A way to share links and resources, achievements, etc... Sitting in the middle of Github, Facebook, Reddit (with links that can be categorized, upboted, high fived and shared) and GeekCred.

<comment><USER29> I don't think they are going for the HN type programmer market, but other types of programmers will not see anything wrong with it. I am thinking more hobbyist programmers and enterprise programmers etc. The closest they get to an online community is Facebook and they perhaps discover answers on stack- overflow after googling but have never thought of creating an account. They probably think, facebook is cool, now here is something like facebook for programmers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am so much annoyed by narrow minded skill choice "c/c++/sqlite/java/...". I have used quite a few technologies, yet my best skills are that I can learn new things and I know how to use a bug tracker (and others of course).

Those skill choices are OK in a technical forum, but not on a "recruiting" site. There is so much more to life than a technical skill.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you are interested in a _real_ social network that is _actually useful_ for programmers, have a look at Ohloh:

<https://www.ohloh.net/>

No matter how great your domain name (programming.com) is, and how well designed your landing page is: As long as you don't offer something that is significant better than Ohloh, I don't see how this project could gain any traction.

<comment><USER32> I looked at Ohloh but could neither find "a real social network" nor something "actually useful for programmers". It seems to be just a collection of more or less well-known Open Source projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That sounds like a good idea. Some potential users could potentially do like me, though, and close the page right after seeing the cliché "nerd" image.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know nothing about this site but, going by the people page, is it's origin in Iran (nothing against it, just curious)?

</comment><comment><USER35> Apparently HN traffic killed the site. That right there makes it unfit for purpose.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't get it, really, I don't get it. Is it combination of GeekList, Stack Overflow and LinkedIn? Not a single word of explanation anywhere on the site.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why so many of its users are based on Iran?

</comment><comment><USER38> Site Not mobile accessible. (Android 2.2.x)

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm sorry but I couldn't relate the model used on home page anyway with myself or any of my programmer friends

</comment><comment><USER40> If you're going to have a continuous scroll, please, please do not put links at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><USER41> Oh please, will you stop this already?

</comment><comment><USER42> is the guy in the picture joshua topolsky? :) <https://plus.google.com/106979372492552141708/posts>

</comment><comment><USER43> I must have another social network account to use your site?

</comment><comment><USER44> I like this. good work and all the best !!

</comment><comment><USER45> They're mocking themselves?</comment>


The New CNN.com (First Screenshots)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/22/the-new-cnn-com-first-screenshot/ <comment><USER2> My #1 request from is that they give me the option of text/video for every article that has video. When I'm watching another video or listening to music I don't want to turn it off just to see the story. They don't appear to be fixing this.

<comment><USER3> I suspect that video adverts are more profitable than banner/text ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to see that they put their logo in the center instead of the top left-- I think it's a little distracting, but maybe this will become a new trend.

<comment><USER5> Logo in the center? Hm, I seem to know that from somewhere ... ah, yeah: <http://www.zdf.de/> (German public service broadcaster, redesign from May)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Each page seems to have less stuff on it than before, which is a good thing. Now it's much less cluttered and more logically organized.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, it is better late than never.

I do not know if they are going to do it, but it would be nice that you can customize it with your preferences about type of news (sports, politics, etc.), location, etc. For what I have read it includes many "social media" sources but it lacks in personalization.

Some months ago the BBC also changed its web site to make it more "Web 2.0". You can personalize it at some level. For example local weather forecast, type of news, type of tv shows in the iPlayer, financial data, etc.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/>

</comment><comment><USER8> It actually looks like a modern multimedia webpage now. I rather like it.

</comment><comment><USER9> While I don't like the quality of their news reporting, I think CNN is one of the few news entertainment companies that really understands web design and has a minimally coherent plan for integrating with the internet. A UX guy at my work was describing how the current design is used as almost a textbook example at a good tech school of a clean way of presenting information.

Contrast that, for example, to nytimes.com which is literally designed to look as similar as possible to the newspaper. Like I said, their "journalism" is garbage but maybe some startup or media company can emulate their ability to create an interface that encourages users to explore.

<comment><USER10> Completely agree. The current design does a great job at "delivering the news" in a straightforward fashion with minimal user effort.

The new design of the home page looks pretty interesting, I'll have to use it for a while to see how it works. First impression is too much imagery, not enough content and not enough content organization. Splitting content in text vs. video doesn't help to get a quick idea of what's going on in business/politics/local/...

From recent experience, I'm not a big fan of CNN news reporting due to too many must-see "man bites dog" story, too many irrelevant "breaking news" and too much recycled content with new headlines slapped on. Reading CNN has mostly become a matter of figuring out what content is worth reading. The best redesign will not change this (unfortunately).

Any guesses what "NewsPulse" will be? A real-time news aggregator?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I see they still haven't addressed the issue of providing their readers with real news: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=888251>

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't think they could have made it look more like Last.fm.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well they get points for honesty, the word "news" doesn't appear anywhere in their heading. But they have have a huge entertainment section. I guess they are the new MTV where the original meaning of their name has been lost, it's just branding for any content.

(The only time I watch CNN anymore is before 9am when they have CNN Asia/Europe on which is actually real news.)

</comment><comment><USER14> the inconsistancy between page templates is mindblowing</comment>


Easystar.js - Pathfinding for HTML5 games - <AUTHOR> http://www.easystarjs.com

<comment><USER2> Here's a comparable lib that is MIT licensed:

[https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js](https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js)

Demo page here: [http://qiao.github.io/PathFinding.js/visual/](http://qiao.github.io/PathFinding.js/visual/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Aren't things like writing pathfinding algorithms half the fun of making a game?

<comment><USER4> More than half for me, back in 1994 I wrote a 360° 2D platform scroller in assembler and figuring out how to do tiling, scrolling, clipping, rain effects, parallax, collision detection, audio and video on my own from scratch in a single thread of execution was more fulfilling than designing and creating levels and is the reason I never finished it. The only algorithm I looked up was bresenhams for drawing lines. Of course I can see why many people would want to avoid that and focus on other aspects. These days I have less time so I leverage libraries _and_ try to finish projects ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I released an asynchronous JS pathfinder that handles path priorities and works on much, much larger grid a few years ago: [http://lumakey.net/labs/ariane/](http://lumakey.net/labs/ariane/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Really? Charging $60 for Jump Point Search? I'm almost inclined to copy the API and implement it for free just out of spite.

<comment><USER7> Why the outrage? If they're promising support, charging makes sense and in any case: their code, their license. It's not like anyone is required to buy it and it'd cost you way more than $60 to duplicate it.

<comment><USER5> True.

However, charging for this particular item is weird, because people who would use this library can figure out how this feature isn't anything _hard_.

Something more interesting could be eg to offload the heaviest computations to the clouds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was an open source HTML 5 A* with Jump Point Search and others. Forgot the url for now, but I am sure others have seen it.

Though this still looks nice.

<comment><USER9> Are you thinking of [https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js/](https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js/) by any chance?</comment></comment>


Does Kit Kat's Shape Deserve a Trademark? E.U. Adds a Hurdle - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/world/europe/kit-kat-nestle-trademark.html <comment><USER2> No, not at all, this is just Nestle (and Mondelez) getting greedy (again).

As long as I can remember Rowntree's Kit Kat existing, there have been supermarket and other brands producing similar style and shaped product. Rowntrees kept their sales by being the clearly superior product. Then Nestles bought them and started ruining it.

Nestle and Mondelez have cheapened and worsened their products since respective takeovers yet now want to preserve their dominance by regulation.

<comment><USER3> Can't agree more. The quality of big brand chocolate is often worse or no better than the cheap copy. I'd go so far as to extend this to a lot of brands other than chocolate - footwear especially.

<comment><USER4> Mostly, the copy cats and the original are the same ( company)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's consider the social contracts that intellectual property protections exist to fulfill in the first place.

For trademarks, for me at least, that seems to center on preventing various harms resulting from consumer confusion, deliberate or otherwise. Indeed, merely "protecting established revenue streams" is explicitly not a reason I'd endorse.

In that context, I'm not sure the consumer is meaningfully confused or harmed by any possible (otherwise legal) use of the trapezoidal four-finger shape by a non-KitKat product. So I'd be inclined to say "no" to trademark protection for it.

Contrary opinions invited, particularly consumer harms I might be overlooking.

<comment><USER6> Since you rarely encounter FMCG products in unpacked form - for reasons including health&safety, when it comes to food - I don't see how a trademark for the chocolate bar itself is warranted. The _packaging_ is clear enough for me not to confuse it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my favorite cooking videos is "Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Kit Kats" \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqJiBRNQuw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqJiBRNQuw)

It's a perfect example of hacking without a computer. There is a whole series of these videos trying to recreate mass produced junk food in a test kitchen, and it's incredible how difficult it can be for even a very experienced chef. It makes you wonder how these products were ever created.

<comment><USER8> There used to be a rule in chocolate bar design -- always have at least one secret step which is hard to reproduce. Those trade secrets were how you stopped people producing clones of your product. Nowadays you can try for a trademark instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also, three stripes:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/adidas-three- str...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/adidas-three-stripes- trademark.html)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/adidas- tr...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/adidas-trademark- war-means-three-stripes-and-you-re-out)

[http://www.maw-law.com/fashion-law/adidas-files-trademark- in...](http://www.maw-law.com/fashion-law/adidas-files-trademark-infringement- suit-against-marc-jacobs-over-stripes/)

[http://www.klemchuk.com/adidas-loses-famous-trademark- regist...](http://www.klemchuk.com/adidas-loses-famous-trademark-registration- european-union/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm split on this. I think that the standard that you have to prove that it's totally ubiquitous across all member states is ludicrous, but at the same time I think it's insane that you can trademark a shape.

<comment><USER11> It's not insane, the point of trademarking shapes is so that customers can't look at something in a glance and confuse it for something else. In the case of kitkat, they simply couldn't prove in court that customers would recognise the shape so it didn't get a trademark.

<comment><USER12> It _is_ insane since it's a general shape.

Should google be given the trademark for a search engine because almost everyone says "google it" (and yes, that is what you are arguing)?

The answer is no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm never happy about trademarking a single, generic thing like that. If someone comes along with the same shape, calls it a Pit-Pat Bar and contains kinda similar ingredients, sure. But I think that if you're going to trademark something narrowly defined, a specific shape or color, then either it needs to be so unique and pointless that no one would ever copy that thing on their own, or it should be coupled with other unique things that clearly identify a single specific brand.

This topic comes up a lot, though. It seems to be that most people in our little bubble think that intellectual property law is too vague, expansive, arbitrary, and violates common sense. At least the supreme court dealt a little bit of a blow to patent trolls, but the whole system needs to be reformed.

<comment><USER14> Sometimes companies do build their identities based on color. For example, UPS brown, Fluke yellow, or Louboutin red.

While it seems silly, they're distinct cues that indicate a specific brand, and having another company use them would cause customer confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't remember ever eating a Kit Kat thingy, but from a look at the photo in the article, I don't understand what's so unique about the shape.

Also, how the hell are you supposed to recognize it when the shape is hidden by the packaging?

</comment><comment><USER16> As a trademark, surely it would need to be used to identify the product as traded. aFAIK kitkat has always been sold in opaque packaging that doesn't even hint at its shape. Just more IP greed :(

</comment><comment><USER17> There are only 3 possible simple designs for separable chocolate bars (trapezoidal, rounded and rectangles with a gap), so allowing to trademark any of them would be bad.

<comment><USER18> In American law Trademarks cannot be "functional" \-- you can't trademark the fact that your wheels are round, since wheels have to be round.

In Europe their priorities are...different.

<comment><USER19> But it seems USA has patents used for that purpose.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but patents expire. A patent on the KitKat would have expired long ago.

<comment><USER19> So do trademarks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A unique shape in connection with a specific product category is fine, but Kit Kat was not the first chocolate bar with this shape (Norway was). So they shouldn't get the trademark.

<comment><USER21> Quoting [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-44939819](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44939819) :

> The Norwegian bar has been made since 1937, a mere two years after Kit Kat - > originally called Rowntree's chocolate crisp - hit the market in 1935.

<comment><USER20> Hit which market? The Norwegian market?

<comment><USER21> The market here means "anywhere in the world", which is aligned with the earlier comment "the first chocolate bar with this shape."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised more people are not in the affirmative on this.

If I saw a chocolate product that had the same shape, I would immediately recognize it as Kit Kat. It is distinctive, worth protecting, and I don't think Nestle is being overly greedy here.

<comment><USER23> Plenty of other chocolates have used that shape for decades.

It's a functional not a pure asthetic choice putting it outside the realm of trademarks.</comment></comment>